Funny how all of these social media platforms that were so happy to describe themselves as “the public town square of the internet” or whatever are now claiming that they own everything that everyone ever posted. So, which is it? Because it obviously cannot be both.
I think you’re conflating two very different things here.
The DMCA covers hosting and dissemination. If a user submits copyrighted data to Reddit that they do not own and Reddit unknowingly (because, to be fair, they can’t know what is or isn’t owned or by who), then Reddit is not liable for copyright infringement as long as they comply with DMCA takedown requests from people who claim to own the original IP.
But again, none of that implies that Reddit themselves (or Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, etc.) can realistically claim ownership over all of the data that is on their website. The reason they are subject to DMCA at all is because there is a globally shared assumption that data that users submit may or may not be owned by some other party, and while the DMCA protects them from being held liable for simply hosting and disseminating that data, it does not magically make them the owner of all data that hasn’t had a DMCA claim made against it.
In other words, if I post a picture of Homer Simpson on Reddit (and there are many), it is ridiculous for anyone to suggest that they have any intellectual property rights over that picture, that character, any trademarks, etc., whether someone has made a formal DMCA take down request or not. And if they don’t own the picture, the character, the trademark, etc., when what exactly are they selling (licensing) and where did they get the right to sell it?
They might not be liable for just hosting/distributing it, but just like you can’t sell someone else’s car, you can’t license out someone else’s IP.
And yet that exact kind of data is all over reddit in ways that are impractical to enforce by case by case DMCA. How many memes are there using footage from popular shows? How much fanart?
More importantly, is that stuff not included as part of the data that reddit “owns” when they sell their data to tech companies? Because whether a DMCA takedown has been requested on that kind of data or not, doesn’t change the fact that they don’t hold the copyright in the first place. How can they sell things that they don’t even own?
Something smells. The logic of this entire industry doesn’t add up.
Their TOS says they own your content in any current or future formats or derivative works.
Their ToS could say they own you and your children and grandchildren, but that doesn’t make it enforceable.
If I post a frame from the movie Akira on Reddit would any reasonable person suggest that they own not only that frame, but also the entire movie that it came from as a derivative work? There is a glut of second-hand data just like that all over Reddit, Twitter, and every other social media network, and I’m willing to bet that’s also part of what’s being sold.
But hey… I’m not saying you’re wrong, just that the idea that they automatically “own” the things that people post on their website is ridiculous. It’s a bit like UPS or FedEx saying they own the contents of your package while delivering it.
“its data”.
Ah yes… of course.
There are plenty of things that people do every day that contribute to the potential spreading of diseases, from every kind of sex to not wearing a mask when you’re sick.
To single out anal sex as a sign that homosexuality is immoral (despite the fact that vaginal sex can also spread diseases, and despite the fact that anal sex is not exclusive to gay people) is a sign that the person you’re talking to is biased and arguing in bad faith.
Ethically speaking, if someone wants to live by a moral system that differentiates between right and wrong based on the potential to spread disease, then that’s fine, but that logic still needs to be coherent and apply to all things, not just selectively to things that they dislike.
But anyway, if they’re sophists, you probably aren’t going to convince them. If you have to engage with that shit, then your best bet is probably the socratic method: ask them targeted questions to poke holes in their flawed logic until they back themselves into a corner. You know what they’re saying doesn’t make any sense, so simply asking them questions which reveal more contradictions will force them to adjust or abandon their position.
Well if you really want me to buy even more shit online (let’s be real, from Amazon) this is a good way to do it.
At best I don’t like small talk or dealing with other people through meaningless interactions. At worst I might have minor social anxiety. I hugely prefer to just walk into a shop, grab what I need, check myself out, and leave.
At this point I’m also just as fast (if not faster) than the paid cashiers and baggers (who need and deserve chairs or stools by the way).
So yeah, if self checkout goes away, I’m buying as much stuff online as possible and generally making fewer trips to the store.
Afaik, you don’t have to rank every candidate in most RCV systems. So If you don’t like someone, you can just leave them unranked.
As a note, Ranked Choice still has bullet voting. About 30% of voters in a ranked choice election bullet vote.
I think that stat could easily be attributed to a lack of familiarity with what is, to a lot of people, a new and different method of voting. You’d be surprised how many people don’t adequately read or understand directions.
In other words, what you’re describing isn’t inherent to the system itself and it could be much worse.
I’d guess that the number of people who bullet vote will decrease as the level of education and familiarity around “new” voting systems like RCV increases.
I call bullshit. Yeah I’m sure they spend 2/3 of their income on rights holders, mainly Joe Rogan, Ed Sheeran and Taylor Swift.
The average musician isn’t making shit, and yet the spotify execs are sipping champagne.
Wonderful. Nothing will help people differentiate between real, trustworthy news and fake opinion-laden disinformation like AI generated people and content!
/s for the kids in the back.
I can see from your other post that you’re talking about Facebook’s role in the Rohingya Genocide in Myanmar, right? I think this part of the wikipedia article is relevant to the conversation:
The internet.org initiative was brought to Myanmar in 2015. Myanmar’s relatively recent democratic transition did not provide the country with substantial time to form professional and reliable media outlets free from government intervention. Furthermore, approximately 1% of Myanmar’s residents had internet access before internet.org. As a result, Facebook was the primary source of information and without verifiable professional media options, Facebook became a breeding ground for hate speech and disinformation. “Rumors circulating among family or friends’ networks on Facebook were perceived as indistinguishable from verified news by its users.”[227] Frequent anti-Rohingya sentiments included high Muslim birthrates, increasing economic influence, and plans to takeover the country. Myanmar’s Facebook community was also nearly completely unmonitored by Facebook, who at the time only had two Burmese-speaking employees. [Emphasis added by me, btw.]
Like I said above, I got off Facebook more than a decade ago and I don’t use their products. As a platform it has been very well documented that Facebook has been a hive for disinformation and social unrest in [probably] every country and language on Earth. You and I might avoid Facebook and Meta like a plague, but the sad truth is that Facebook has become ubiquitous all over the world for all kinds of communication and business. Weirdos like us are here on the fediverse, but the average person has never even heard of this shit, don’t you agree?
So what’s my point? Why is any of that relevant?
As true as it is that Facebook was complicit in the atrocities in Myanmar (as well as social unrest and chaos on a global scale), a key component there is centralization, imo.
There are an estimated ~7,000 languages on Earth today across ~200 countries. To put it bluntly, what I’m saying is that content moderation across every language and culture on Earth is infeasible, if not straight-up impossible. Facebook will never be able to do it, nor will Google, X, Bluesky, Tiktok, Microsoft, Amazon, or any other company. In light of that it’s actually shocking that Facebook had 2 Burmese speakers among their staff in the first place, considering many companies have 0. In other words, there is no single centralized social network on Earth who can combat against global disinformation, hate speech, etc. I think we can all agree to that. Hell, even Meta’s staff would probably agree to that.
So what’s the solution to disinformation, hate speech and civil unrest?
Frankly I’m not sure that there is one, simple solution, as the openness and freedom of the internet will always allow for someone, somewhere, to say and do bad things. But at the same time I strongly believe that federation and decentralization can be at least a part of the solution, as it give communities of every nation and language on Earth the power and agency to manage and moderate their own social networks.
I think you and I probably feel similarly about Facebook (and, for me at least, Tiktok, Instagram, X, and other toxic centralized corporate social networks that put profit about all else). After all, that’s why we’re talking here instead of there, right? I would much rather have everyone just leave Facebook for somewhere that is owned and controlled by individual communities. But that’s simply not in our power. And so, at least as I see it, ActivityPub becoming a widely-adopted standard for inter-network communication at least creates more opportunity for decentralization and community-moderation.
As long as Facebook remains the single dominant venue for communication and news across the world (and all of those ~7000 languages), we will continue to see linguistic minorities hurt the most by disinformation and hate on the internet.
For me personally there are two main forces at play here:
I generally dislike and distrust Facebook/Meta as a company, I don’t use their products, and I think my life is better off because of it. I acknowledge that they have also been an accessory to a lot of toxic shit, such as political/emotional manipulation, privacy and user data violations, etc.
Having said that, as someone who values and supports the idea of a free and decentralized internet built on top of open protocols, I also recognize that it’s a very good thing when some of the larger players in internet technology adopt new free and open standards like ActivityPub.
I don’t really know for sure, but I’d have to guess that the venn diagram overlap of people who care about the fediverse and people who genuinely like Meta/Facebook/Instagram/etc, is pretty fucking narrow. We’d be fools to ignore the real harm that this company and the people who run it have done (or at least catalyzed). And still, it’d also be pretty unfair and ignorant to brush off the things that Meta has done that range from being harmless to even being positive, such as maintaining and committing to some very popular and important open source projects. There is some nuance here, should we choose to see it…
So when I look at it objectively I land on feeling something between skepticism and cautious optimism.
I’m perfectly willing to call Meta out for doing bad things while acknowledging when they do things that are good. And as someone who believes that centralized social media is toxic and bad, and who also believes that a federated, community-driven internet is in all of our mutual best interest, I’m willing to give Meta a chance to participate as long as they are a good faith participant (which kind of remains to be seen, of course).
From a tech standpoint, as an open protocol, I think ActivityPub will benefit when Meta and other big players adopt it.
From a cultural standpoint, I’m also pretty confident that Mastodon, Misskey, PixelFed, Lemmy, Kbin, etc., have a decent set of tools for dealing with whatever problems arise with regards to things like moderation, data scraping, EEE, etc… Some instances will undoubtedly choose to defederate, as is their prerogative, but other instances will choose to deal with the tradeoffs of a larger userbase–and that’s the Fediverse working as intended, imo.
I’m don’t think I am.
The internet had a ton of legitimate and potential users too, but that didn’t prevent the dot com bubble from bursting.
Not only is AI built on a shakey house of cards of stolen IP and unlicensed writing, artwork, music and other data, but there are also way too many players in the space and an amount of investment that, in my opinion, goes way beyond the reality of what AI can achieve.
Whether AI is a bubble or not has more to do with the hype economy around it than the technology itself.
AI is looking like the biggest bubble in tech history and stuff like this really ain’t helping.
Part of my core philosophy is to never let other people define you. Define yourself and let other people define themselves too.
You’re not gonna sell shit with jacked up sky high prices, even more so in a time of high interest rates. We see your lots are full of unsold cars, both ICE and EV, so maybe it’s time to bring prices back down to Earth.
We really ought to change the laws to allow for direct-to-consumer car sales. Dealerships are scummy motherfuckers who are perfectly happy to be a middleman and rip people off.
Clearly not. There are a thousand ways to read a person. And they work pretty well.
Unless you can read minds, which you can’t (even with your tinfoil hat off), then you literally cannot know things which are not somehow expressed (through words, facial expressions, body language, actions, etc.). Words are the most direct way that the vast majority of human beings express themselves, as things like body language and action require third-party interpretation, which obviously adds a second layer of subjectivity, and considerable flaws in terms of misinterpretation, bias, etc.
I stated that it is a privileged class of information. One that is excluded from scrutiny because we declare scrutiny, in this case, untrustworthy.
Simply restarting your opinion may make you feel correct (which you’re entitled to feel), but it doesn’t actually change the objective truth:
Feelings are “excluded from scrutiny” not because “we [who?] declare scrutiny untrustworthy”, but because of the simple objective truth (that almost every human being has intuitively understood since the dawn of time) that the internal thoughts and feelings of others are fundamentally unknowable, and that we rely on expression to have a window into the minds of others.
If you believe that’s not true, then answer this:
If I tell you that I’m feeling hungry right now, what basis could you possibly have to tell me that I’m not?
If you can’t answer that question, then you straight up have no argument in the first place, and that alone answers your original question.
So now I’ve lead you to water, and it’s up to you whether you drink or not. I’m not going to waste any more of my time on this.
Of course people lie, and they could easily lie about how they’re feeling. But what possible basis do you have to argue against what someone else says they’re feeling?
If I tell you that I’m feeling hungry, for example, how could you possibly make an argument that I’m not?
You could see that I just ate a sandwich, but that doesn’t mean I don’t still feel hungry. In fact, you could see that I just ate 10 sandwiches, but it’s entirely possible for someone to still feel hungry, based on how the brain and human psyche work.
The best case arguement is the opinion that a person’s actions are seemingly inconsistent with a certain stated feeling: for example a widow who says that she’s crippled with sorrow, only to be caught going on dates with other men. But again, you’re not arguing feelings there, you’re arguing an opinion about the consistency of behavior.
The feelings of others are fundamentally unknowable to us. Expression (words, facial expressions, body language, behavior, etc) is our only window into the feelings of others.
He lets the worm do the thinking.